Sky Exchange II

The second iteration of 2020’s Sky Exchange presents a collection of sky flags created by participants from around the world.The Sky Exchange is a public art project created by artist Brittany Vega and made possible by PTXM. The project was first created in the summer of 2020 and launched as a city-wide show in October 2020. As our social circles had grown smaller, the Sky Exchange aimed to engage viewers personally, provide a physical experience with artwork, and make that work available to be viewed beyond an enclosed space. Wanting to regain sight of what we share in common, participants were called upon to submit their own images of the sky as they saw it at any given point in time. They received, in return, the flag of another; embracing a view not of their own. While viewers could serendipitously run into the flags as passerby, the show indefinitely exists virtually online for all to see. Over 30 submissions were received, resulting in dozens of painted flags flying around the Portland area; flying an ode to the perspective of another, an ode not to a nation, but to a shared place, a flag for the sky.

This year, Sky Exchange II launched on a global scale as a PTXM Distributed Community Project. Rather than one artist creating a body of flags, the participants themselves became the makers and contributed one handmade flag to be featured in the final exhibition in Portland, Oregon. When the show is over, all flags will be shipped back to participants but swapped to finalize the exchange itself resulting in each participant receiving a flag made by someone else. The work then lives on with the makers around the world within this shared network of Sky Exchange contributors. And only for a moment, flags from Tokyo to Helsinki to Kansas City, a collection of unique perspectives will wave in Portland. 

Portland TextileX Month Distributed Community Projects (DCP) connect people with broader communities and are made possible by a grant by the Multnomah County Cultural Coalition. Our DCPs have a broad social impact within communities by encouraging collective participation and partnering with artists and leaders who can act as amplified facilitators for dialogue and creative expression. The DCP submission process prioritized projects that are led by or served marginalized or under-represented communities and often feature collaborations between artists, organizations, and community leaders from diverse cultural backgrounds.